This Love
by nikkinor
Summary: KateGibbs, Strawberry Wine Sries, “She’ll deny every emotion she’s ever felt for him


Title: This Love

Rating: K+

Paring: Kate/Gibbs

Series: Strawberry Wine (3/?)

Summary: "She'll deny every emotion she's ever felt for him and reject every beautiful thought that crosses her mind about a relationship she's always wished for."

Disclaimer: NCIS doesn't belong to me, and it never will.

Spoilers: None.

A/N: Wow, this one took me a very long time to finish. And I'm very sorry that I have kept everyone in suspense for such a lengthy amount of time, but I think the finished product is kinda worth the wait. I owe Dreamer20715 and Sundance a very big thank you for all of the help they have given me for this story, and Dreamer especially for betaing this story. Hopefully the next on wont take me 8 months to finish. So since I've kept you all waiting for to long already, on to the story!

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_I'd be better off without you. No looking' back, I'm moving on. You'll never steal the song of my lips. I'll never bow down to give you a kiss, no. You'll never steal my innocence. You've been dismissed. (ZOEgirl – Dismissed)_

She got back two days ago.

He has driven by her apartment complex twice a day, every day waiting to see her car parked in her  
assigned spot. He's gone to her house once before work and once after work for five days in a row; but he wasn't counting. He'd waited for a good half hour before he would leave for work or home, staying just long enough to get the satisfaction that she wouldn't come home without him knowing. It was twenty minutes out of his way, but he found a little tranquility with checking in on her and, to him, somehow keeping her safe and protected.

She's not allowed to come back to work for another two days, but he knows she'll try to come back early and he'll see her in the office this morning. He's thinking about not saying a word about her not taking off her full time of forced leave though; cause he knows he'd do the same thing. He wouldn't sit back while his team worked, and he most definitely wouldn't take a week off just because he had been taken hostage. He knows his Katie well enough to recognize exactly what she'd do.

Especially since she's just like him.

His Katie follows a pattern of control and independence and all of her decisions are based on  
what will give her more power and put her in a better position to have more command over her territory. To her, rebellion against the forced leave will get her that desired authority; but to him, it's a way for him to be one step in front of her and let her think she's in charge. It often reminds him of the games he played with his wives as the divorces had been in the latter stages, but he doubts that she would ever come after him with a baseball bat.

He knows that she'll be back at work today with a smile on her face and a witty comment for DiNozzo. And she'll definitely be sitting at her desk early. She's worked with him for over a year and she has never missed a Monday and has almost always been early. She's bright and cheery on Mondays, hardly ever drinks coffee and never naps behind his back on Mondays like everyone else seems to do. She's the only face he looks forward to seeing at the beginning of the week.

He, on the other hand, hates Mondays.

He hates the smell, the feeling, the sound, and the whole nature of the first day of the working week. He enjoys his job and is very okay with going back to work, but he doesn't like agents that think they can get away with showing up late and slacking off all day 'because it's Monday.' Everyone is lazy and aggravated on Monday and he doesn't like that one bit, since the only person on his team he allows to be grouchy is himself, cause he's the boss.

But he isn't as hateful towards this Monday; he's actually kind of happy that the calendar has finally  
rolled around to Monday. Mostly because he gets to see her again. He's been through five generally very Kate filled days with scarcely a trace of her anywhere he's been. The smell of her perfume in his truck had vanished after only two days, and the taste of her lips and the feel of her hands had disappeared even sooner.

He'd longed to hear the soft tone of her voice and glimpse just one smile that graced her lovely face.  
Even though he didn't want to admit it, he had missed her a great deal. He took her presence at her desk for granted and he'd never realized how accustomed he had gotten to her bantering with DiNozzo. He'd even started to miss the sound of the squeaky wheel on her chair.

But the feeling of an absent joy in his life would soon come to an end. He'd see her today and all those  
lonely nights he's spent thinking about where she was and how she was doing would finally come to an end. He'd stop drinking ten cups of coffee a day and at last rediscover the exhilarating ecstasy he sees in her grin.

Cause Katie's coming home.

----------------

She yawns as she boards the main elevator, squeezing in just as the two silver doors close and a ding goes off as the passengers anticipate the arrival at their floors. She leans against the corner of the small room-sized box and relaxes a little as the elevator jerks faintly with a start. She never really liked elevator rides; a group of people you barely know all smashed together in a big metal box. And there always seems to be someone sweating, even though it was cool or possibly cold, they were always sweating.

Today wasn't so bad though, Mondays usually aren't. She makes it her priority to be early every Monday and being early does have a few advantages, like very empty elevators. There is only one other person riding, and he wasn't even sweating. He turns to face her and steals a quick glace at her exceptionally visible chest.

"Nice to see you back at work, Kate."

She smiles at him and sweeps her long brown hair behind her shoulder as he smiles widely at her. His  
name is Eric and they've been pretty good friends for the past year she's been at NCIS. She knows he always kind of had a thing for her, and she kind of liked him back just a little. They flirted every now and then, and he had taken her out to dinner one night when she had first stared to work here. The elevator dings and she catches the second quick glace he throws at her chest as he waves bye and he gets off on his respective level.

She really is a good girl.

But she couldn't help but feel a little dirty when she picked out a precariously low cutting blouse this  
morning. The black suit pants and matching jacket were tasteful and respectable, but the shirt beneath the sophisticated exterior was attractive and somewhat audacious. She'd cleaned herself up very nicely this morning and covered herself in makeup and perfume. She wanted him to think she was doing just fine without him, give him the allusion that she's cool, calm and collected; but still give him plenty of skin to make him wish he hadn't walked away from her so many nights ago.

Plus Abby had given her a very striking perfume a few months ago.

Abs told her it was a present that she couldn't wear, had insisted that it was 'Kate Todd's perfect scent', and she had some how been pulled into bringing the bottle home. She had only worn it once before, and three men had asked her out that night. At first she had thought it was the new black dress she'd bought, but the times after that when she wore it she'd hardly gotten her own date to pay attention to her. When she figured out it was the perfume she decided that it would be best to save it for nicer occasions, and until today she hadn't found the right time.

She'd thought about the DiNozzo factor when she had decided on the perfume, but the risk seemed to be worth it for Gibbs. She's a good Catholic girl that goes to church when she's not on a case and confesses her sins to her priest; maybe her faith has been quite lax in the past few years, but she still holds to it to a degree. But Jethro Gibbs seems to make her mind forget everything she learned in twelve years of Catholic school.

She should never be having thoughts of making out with men on office desks and in janitor closets, on autopsy tables and in the back of the NCIS truck; and she absolutely shouldn't be thinking about doing far worse under the frame of a wooden boat. Good Catholic girls don't think about such things, but he seemed to be pulling all the 'good girl' things from her brain and putting dirty little thoughts in their place.

She hears the annoying ding of the elevator doors and nervously pulls the V of her shirt down just a little more before she walks between the two polished metal doors. She wants to grab Gibbs' attention today. Show him everything he could have from her and make him want it, then remind him of their kiss and make him want more. Then give him one big emotional blow when she denies him everything she has to offer, just to give him a taste of what he did to her.

Maybe today wouldn't be that bad.

---------------

"You're not supposed to be here."

"It's good to see you too, Tony."

He looks confused and she's got an unhappy frown on her face. She'd gotten very used to joking with Tony every morning, and even though she would never admit it, she had missed him just a little bit. He's like the brother you love to hate but couldn't live without. DiNozzo just has an odd way of growing on you like that.

"It's not like I'm not happy to see you Kate. I just thought…" He smiles, big and bold.

She looks away from her starting computer. "What?"

He walks over to her, and with his sick DiNozzo charm he leans over her desk and runs his eyes over her body until he finally meets two very unhappy eyes. "You look hot, Kate."

She narrows her eyes at him. "You're a pig."

"I can't help it that you look good today." But he doesn't give up there. He sticks his noise farther into her personal space and picks up the sent of her special perfume. "And smell good."

She gives his arm a slight push, and he rubs his arm with sad puppy dog eyes and walks away from her and back to his own desk. "Like I was saying, I thought you were still on forced leave."

"She is, DiNozzo."

She knows that voice and that demanding tone; she recognizes the attitude behind the words and tries her hardest to not look backwards to find him. She had missed that voice so badly, longed to see the lips and desired just one harsh stare aimed at her. He has a way of seeping deep down into your soul, making you want just a little more of him even if you have more than enough.

She looks at Tony with a fake smile and a glimmer in her eye. "Well, I guess I just missed DiNozzo too much to live another day without him." She sweetens her voice just enough to give her words the fine bite of sarcasm. She looks up as he walks alongside of the partition beside her desk and her eyes meet the side of his face, indulging in the first bit of him she's seen in what seems like forever.

He ignores his subordinate's teasing and briskly walks by the more lively and attractive one of the two and sets a coffee cup down carelessly on her desk without a word as he passes by her. He just loves that tiny bit of surprise he sees in the center of her eyes out of the corner of his. After weeks of not seeing her surprised or shocked he had forgotten how stunning she was when her eyes showed off the gleam of astonishment.

Her eyes leave his face for a moment and take a glace at the coffee cup he's placed within her reach. She thought he'd be annoyed by her and avoid any contact or communication with her, she thought everything would be different in a dreadful way. But she's starting to think she's wrong.

"Get out of my office Agent Todd."

Or maybe not.

She was incredibly close to deciding to be kind to him today. She was almost about to say 'thank you' with sincere meaning as a sign that she would leave personal problems out of the office, like she thought he was doing. But he'd shown himself as the same old Gibbs that holds grudges for eternity and gradually adds more bitterness to the resentment as time goes by.

"Why?"

He takes a few steps back and stands right in front of her desk and gives her the Gibbs stare. The one he uses to get criminals to admit their wrongs or to make DiNozzo shut up, and it's the first times he's used it on her since they'd both been on Air Force One. "There's a reason they call it forced leave, Kate."

She stands up from her chair and shoots her own Kate stare back at him, refusing to back down. "You're going to get mad over two days?"

"Yes!" It's a little louder that he had intended, but he knows he's getting his point across when her stare intensifies and her lips purse together tighter.

She moves closer, standing on her tiptoes in her heels to make herself a little more intimidating at being to close to his height. "And what if I bring this up with Director Morrow and he's fine with me starting back today?"

He's not looking at sweet and caring Katie, he's staring down cold and independent Caitlin. She's  
challenging him with her stare, provoking him to say 'get out' again.

"Conference room." His voice is a deep growl, his personal mark that if he didn't have a exceedingly  
strong resolve he would have blown up in her face already. She meets his eyes and brings a steely glare covered with ice and fury and his eyes burn back with fire and wrath.

She pulls away first, walking quickly to the elevator and making herself stay in front to show her authority over what he does. But he walks faster and almost easily gets ahead of her and pushes the button for the elevator before she even has a chance. She still presses the button when she reaches him, because she needs to take control and be the old Secret Service Kate today.

---------------

The doors swoosh and ding as they close.

Kate makes her way to back of the elevator, touching her heels to the floor silently. As she rests her back against the left corner of the silver box she crosses her legs and her arms, staring hatefully at her boss' back. Gibbs takes command in the other corner, watching her vague and blurred figure in the dull gray of the elevator doors. He stands with a straight back and tight fists, allowing their ride to last for a few nervous moments before he switches the emergency stop. The room takes on a dim blue shade from the backup lights in the railing along the wall and he sighs just a little when he can't make out her fuzzy shape in the doors.

He turns unhurriedly, taking his time to examine every crack and bend of the wall and floor. Slowly, he gives her the time to squirm in her place and think over what she's about to fight for. The more time he gives her, the faster she'll decide that he's right and she's wrong. Because he is right; and he needs just a little time to think over what he'll say and how he'll make her change her mind on her own, without him yelling and threatening to fire her.

But for some reason when his eyes find her body leaning against the wall, he can't remember what he  
was going to say. His words get lost somewhere between his mind and his mouth, and he almost forgets it's not polite to stare.

He finally gets the chance to notice what she's wearing.

His eyes scan over the black and red cloth that covers and shows gorgeous curves and lines of a very feminine body. His nose starts to pick up on the sweet smell of her perfume and his mind starts to forget he's supposed to be mad at her when the enthralling effect of the fragrance brushes over him. And when his eyes find her face he remembers that Katie Todd is a woman with a mind, a mouth, two hands that can kill, and the body of a lady. And that's a lethal combination to a man who has a thing for deadly beautiful women.

"Are you going to fire me?"

The question echoes in the stillness, breaking thoughts of her body and bringing back his sense of  
anger. He hopes he hasn't shown her any sign of him giving in, hopes his face has remained bitter and  
indifferent. He looks her in the eye with cold and irritated features, hoping that she won't find a spark  
of desire deep in his eyes.

"Do you want me to fire you?"

She thinks over his question for a moment, playing with the idea of what would happen if he did fire her, but in the end her brain decides she doesn't want to lose her job. "No." She searches his eyes for a reaction, but finds none. "But that doesn't mean you won't."

He sighs, just slightly. "I'm not going to fire you." He takes two steps forward, with his eyes staring her  
down. "Unless you give me a reason to."

She challenges his stare with her own intent look of death. "Like coming to work two days early?" She tilts her head with her words and narrows her eyes.

"It's not about the two days, Kate." He lessens his gaze, but not in an acceptance of defeat. He backs  
down because he wants a gentle recognition of who's right and who's wrong. "You deliberately disobeyed my orders and the Directors orders by showing up at NCIS today. How do you think I'm supposed to keep a team together with rebellion tearing at the seams? How do you…"

"It wasn't rebellion!"

She can't and won't let him discredit her right to be at work. She'd called early that morning, and had  
almost begged Director Morrow to allow her to come back to work and omit the last two days of forced leave. He'd agreed to her request after ten minutes of reasons why she should be allowed back at work and qualifications she had that no one else in NCIS could even come close to matching. And she wasn't about to let her pleading go to waste.

"If you had taken a second to ask me if I had permission to be at NCIS today, you might have found  
out the Director personally gave me authorization to ignore the last two days of my leave." She felt so  
proud that she had been one step in front of Gibbs the entire time, and just hadn't let him know until now.

"You went over my head!?" She doesn't think she's ever seen him so mad. She knew he had problems with his people taking matters to the Director instead of him when it concerned his agents, but she didn't think it was this bad.

"I did not go over your head! I took issues concerning my job to the person who would make the final  
decision!" She's a little flushed and really mad, and her feet seem to move toward him without her even making them go.

"I make the final decisions!" They're almost head to head, their feet are only inches apart, and their  
bodies are so dangerously close.

"I am an NCIS Special Agent and the absolute decisions on my job come from my director!"

And before she can tell what's happening, his hands come up fast on either side of her waist, surrounding her in him and nothing else.

Her back is flush against the cold metal wall and her arms are pressed between her sides and his  
encompassing arms. His feet are on the toes of her shoes and she can feel the small spot where his leg brushes against her leg. His face is so close and his breath is being blow over her cheeks and her neck, his body is all she can seem to think about and his face is all she can look at.

He always had to stand so close her when he talked. His chest would lightly brush against her back at  
times, or his arm would carelessly fall alongside hers. Sometime she could feel the heat from his body  
through their cloth, and she loves those times. But this is so much better than any of those times; it's  
like being back in her apartment with him all over her again.

Her breathing is uneven and it takes her a few moments for her eyes to focus on his. And for the first time in over a week their eyes truly meet with the thoughts of only the other, and her heart skips a beat. His nose touches hers, just a slight brush of skin to skin as he moves closer. She starts to forget where she is and why she was mad, all she can see is him and his breath is all over her, and if his arms weren't pressing so hard against her she would have started to fall over by now.

He whispers to her as his lips come tremendously close to hers. "I make all of your decisions." His voice starts to get rough around the edges, "You listen to me, and you never go over my head, never." He gives her arms a quick and mild shove as he pushes himself from the wall, leaving her half falling in shock.

"And you won't be coming to work until Wednesday, like you were supposed to before."

Somewhere she remembers she has to fight on this subject, she remembers that no matter how good his arms felt she needs to fight for her right to work today.

"I'm staying today, and I plan on coming in tomorrow too. Just because you still have issues about that  
night in my apartment doesn't mean I'm not a good agent. I deserve to be here and do my job!"

Just when he thought he had won, she finds some other reason to face him down again.

"I do not have issues on that night. I walked away and it ended there."

"Exactly! You walked away!"

"I saved you, Kate! The last thing you need is your grumpy old boss ruining your career because he thinks he likes you!" He looks at her a way he's never looked at her before, with absolutely nothing in his eyes. "But he doesn't, Kate. He doesn't love you and he doesn't care about you." He sighs and runs his hand over his face. "And you don't care about him."

He sees the spark of fire in the center of her eyes fall to the corner of them, retreating in their  
emotional defeat. And he knows it's going to hurt more than the first time, but it has to be done.

"That's the way it has to be." She turns her head away from him and he walks away from her, away from her own corner of the elevator to his own, debating on whether he should start the elevator now or not.

He keeps his back to her, cause he doesn't want her to see the pain in his eyes and remorse written clearly on his face. "Like you said, you're a NCIS Special Agent, Kate. But so am I. Anything that ever existed between us has to stop here in this elevator."

And the blue glow goes off and the soft yellow beam of the normal lights comes back on as the elevator starts back up with a minor bump.

She has to give it all up.

She'll try to forget the looks and the stares and the sweet little times he has made her laugh. She'll deny every emotion she's ever felt for him and reject every beautiful thought that crosses her mind about a relationship she's always wished for. She'll cover up the red that comes to her cheeks when he says something sincere, hide every smirk, and bury that silly box of memories in her mind of all the times he's made her think he might love her back. She has to give him up. And because she knows somewhere deep down inside his heart he did almost love her, she knows he'll do the same.

Because he's just like her.


End file.
